PS 

316Z 

A78 


EDITH  WHARTON 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Blake  Reynolds  Nevius 


ARTEMIS  TO  ACTION 


ARTEMIS   TO    ACTION 
AND    OTHER    VERSE 

BY 

EDITH    WHARTON 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1909 


Copyright,  1909,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
Published  April,  1909 


es 


CONTENTS 

Part  I—  PAQ. 

ARTEMIS    TO    ACTION  3 

LIFE  7 

VESALIU8     IN     ZANTE  14 

MARGARET     OF     CORTONA  24 

A    TORCHBEARER  32 

Part  II— 

THE    MORTAL    LEASE  37 

EXPERIENCE  45 

GRIEF  47 

CHARTRES  49 

TWO     BACKGROUNDS  51 

THE    TOMB     OF     ILARIA  GIUNIGI                                              53 

THE    ONE    GRIEF  54 

THE     EUMENIDES  55 


CONTENTS 

Part  III —  .                                           PAGE 

ORPHEUS  59 

AN   AUTUMN  SUNSET  66 

MOONBISE  OVER  TYRINGHAM  68 

ALL  SOULS  72 

ALL  SAINTS  76 

THE  OLD   POLE  STAR  79 

A     GRAVE  81 

NON   DOLET!  83 

A   HUNTING-SONG  85 

SURVIVAL  87 

USES  88 

A  MEETING  89 


ARTEMIS    TO    ACTION 

THOU  couldst  not  look  on  me  and  live:  so  runs 
The  mortal  legend — thou  that  couldst  not  live 
Nor  look  on  me  (so  the  divine  decree) ! 
That  saw'st  me  in  the  cloud,  the  wave,  the  bough, 
The  clod  commoved  with  April,  and  the  shapes 
Lurking  'twixt  lid  and  eye-ball  in  the  dark. 
Mocked  I  thee  not  in  every  guise  of  life, 
Hid  in  girls'  eyes,  a  naiad  in  her  well, 
Wooed  through  their  laughter,  and  like  echo  fled, 
Luring  thee  down  the  primal  silences 
Where  the  heart  hushes  and  the  flesh  is  dumb  ? 
Nay,  was  not  I  the  tide  that  drew  thee  out 
Relentlessly  from  the  detaining  shore, 
Forth  from  the  home-lights  and  the  hailing  voices, 
Forth  from  the  last  faint  headland's  failing  line, 
Till  I  enveloped  thee  from  verge  to  verge 
And  hid  thee  in  the  hollow  of  my  being  ? 
And  still,  because  between  us  hung  the  veil, 
The  myriad-tinted  veil  of  sense,  thy  feet 
Refused  their  rest,  thy  hands  the  gifts  of  life, 
Thy  heart  its  losses,  lest  some  lesser  face 
Should  blur  mine  image  in  thine  upturned  soul 
3 


ARTEMIS    TO    ACTION 

Ere  death  had  stamped  it  there.   This  was  thy  thought. 
And  mine  ? 

The  gods,  they  say,  have  all :  not  so ! 
This  have  they — flocks  on  every  hill,  the  blue 
Spirals  of  incense  and  the  amber  drip 
Of  lucid  honey-comb  on  sylvan  shrines, 
First-chosen  weanlings,  doves  immaculate, 
Twin-cooing  in  the  osier-plaited  cage, 
And  ivy-garlands  glaucous  with  the  dew: 
Man's  wealth,  man's  servitude,  but  not  himself! 
And  so  they  pale,  for  lack  of  warmth  they  wane, 
Freeze  to  the  marble  of  their  images, 
And,  pinnacled  on  man's  subserviency, 
Through  the  thick  sacrificial  haze  discern 
Unheeding  lives  and  loves,  as  some  cold  peak 
Through  icy  mists  may  enviously  descry 
Warm  vales  unzoned  to  the  all-fruitful  sun. 
So  they  along  an  immortality 
Of  endless-vistaed  homage  strain  their  gaze, 
If  haply  some  rash  votary,  empty-urned, 
But  light  of  foot,  with  all-adventuring  hand, 
Break  rank,  fling  past  the  people  and  the  priest, 
Up  the  last  step,  on  to  the  inmost  shrine, 
And  there,  the  sacred  curtain  in  his  clutch, 
Drop  dead  of  seeing — while  the  others  prayed ! 
4 


ARTEMIS    TO    ACTION 

Yea,  this  we  wait  for,  this  renews  us,  this 

Incarnates  us,  pale  people  of  your  dreams, 

Who  are  but  what  you  make  us,  wood  or  stone, 

Or  cold  chryselephantine  hung  with  gems, 

Or  else  the  beating  purpose  of  your  life, 

Your  sword,  your  clay,  the  note  your  pipe  pursues, 

The  face  that  haunts  your  pillow,  or  the  light 

Scarce  visible  over  leagues  of  labouring  sea ! 

O  thus  through  use  to  reign  again,  to  drink 

The  cup  of  peradventure  to  the  lees, 

For  one  dear  instant  disimmortalised 

In  giving  immortality! 

So  dream  the  gods  upon  their  listless  thrones. 

Yet  sometimes,  when  the  votary  appears, 

With  death-affronting  forehead  and  glad  eyes, 

Too  young,  they  rather  muse,  too  frail  thou  art, 

And  shall  we  rob  some  girl  of  saffron  veil 

And  nuptial  garland  for  so  slight  a  thing? 

And  so  to  their  incurious  loves  return. 

Not  so  with  thee;  for  some  indeed  there  are 
Who  would  behold  the  truth  and  then  return 
To  pine  among  the  semblances — but  I 
Divined  in  thee  the  questing  foot  that  never 
Revisits  the  cold  hearth  of  yesterday 
5 


ARTEMIS    TO    ACTION 

Or  calls  achievement  home.     I  from  afar 
Beheld  thee  fashioned  for  one  hour's  high  use, 
Nor  meant  to  slake  oblivion  drop  by  drop. 
Long,  long  hadst  thou  inhabited  my  dreams, 
Surprising  me  as  harts  surprise  a  pool, 
Stealing  to  drink  at  midnight;  I  divined 
Thee  rash  to  reach  the  heart  of  life,  and  lie 
Bosom  to  bosom  in  occasion's  arms, 
And  said :  Because  I  love  thee  thou  sJialt  die! 

For  immortality  is  not  to  range 
Unlimited  through  vast  Olympian  days, 
Or  sit  in  dull  dominion  over  time; 
But  this — to  drink  fate's  utmost  at  a  draught, 
Nor  feel  the  wine  grow  stale  upon  the  lip, 
To  scale  the  summit  of  some  soaring  moment, 
Nor  know  the  dulness  of  the  long  descent, 
To  snatch  the  crown  of  life  and  seal  it  up 
Secure  forever  in  the  vaults  of  death! 

And  this  was  thine:  to  lose  thyself  in  me, 
Relive  in  my  renewal,  and  become 
The  light  of  other  lives,  a  quenchless  torch 
Passed  on  from  hand  to  hand,  till  men  are  dust 
And  the  last  garland  withers  from  my  shrine. 


N 


LIFE 

AY,  lift  me  to  thy  lips,  Life,  and  once  more 
Pour  the  wild  music  through  me — 


I  quivered  in  the  reed-bed  with  my  kind, 
Rooted  in  Lethe-bank,  when  at  the  dawn 
There  came  a  groping  shape  of  mystery 
Moving  among  us,  that  with  random  stroke 
Severed,  and  rapt  me  from  my  silent  tribe, 
Pierced,  fashioned,  lipped  me,  sounding  for  a  voice, 
Laughing  on  Lethe-bank — and  in  my  throat 
I  felt  the  wing-beat  of  the  fledgeling  notes, 
The  bubble  of  godlike  laughter  in  my  throat. 

Such  little  songs  she  sang, 
Pursing  her  lips  to  fit  the  tiny  pipe, 
They  trickled  from  me  like  a  slender  spring 
That  strings  frail  wood-growths  on  its  crystal  thread, 
Nor  dreams  of  glassing  cities,  bearing  ships. 
She  sang,  and  bore  me  through  the  April  world 
Matching  the  birds,  doubling  the  insect-hum 
In  the  meadows,  under  the  low-moving  airs, 
And  breathings  of  the  scarce-articulate  air 
7 


LIFE 

When  it  makes  mouths  of  grasses — but  when  the  sky 
Burst  into  storm,  and  took  great  trees  for  pipes, 
She  thrust  me  in  her  breast,  and  warm  beneath 
Her  cloudy  vesture,  on  her  terrible  heart, 
I  shook,  and  heard  the  battle. 

But  more  oft, 

Those  early  days,  we  moved  in  charmed  woods, 
Where  once,  at  dusk,  she  piped  against  a  faun, 
And  one  warm  dawn  a  tree  became  a  nymph 
Listening;  and  trembled;  and  Life  laughed  and  passed. 
And  once  we  came  to  a  great  stream  that  bore 
The  stars  upon  its  bosom  like  a  sea, 
And  ships  like  stars;  so  to  the  sea  we  came. 
And  there  she  raised  me  to  her  lips,  and  sent 
One  swift  pang  through  me;  then  refrained  her  hand, 
And  whispered:  "Hear — "  and  into  my  frail  flanks, 
Into  my  bursting  veins,  the  whole  sea  poured 
Its  spaces  and  its  thunder;  and  I  feared. 

We  came  to  cities,  and  Life  piped  on  me 
Low  calls  to  dreaming  girls, 

In  counting-house  windows,  through  the  chink  of  gold, 
Flung  cries  that  fired  the  captive  brain  of  youth, 
And  made  the  heavy  merchant  at  his  desk 
8 


LIFE 

Curse  us  for  a  cracked  hurdy-gurdy;  Life 
Mimicked  the  hurdy-gurdy,  and  we  passed. 

We  climbed  the  slopes  of  solitude,  and  there 

Life  met  a  god,  who  challenged  her  and  said: 

"Thy  pipe  against  my  lyre ! "    But  "Wait ! "  she  laughed, 

And  in  my  live  flank  dug  a  finger-hole, 

And  wrung  new  music  from  it.    Ah,  the  pain! 

We  climbed  and  climbed,  and  left  the  god  behind. 
We  saw  the  earth  spread  vaster  than  the  sea, 
With  infinite  surge  of  mountains  surfed  with  snow, 
And  a  silence  that  was  louder  than  the  deep; 
But  on  the  utmost  pinnacle  Life  again 
Hid  me,  and  I  heard  the  terror  in  her  hair. 

Safe  in  new  vales,  I  ached  for  the  old  pang, 
And  clamoured  "Play  me  against  a  god  again!" 
"Poor  Marsyas-mortal — he  shall  bleed  thee  yet," 
She  breathed  and  kissed  me,  stilling  the  dim  need. 
But  evermore  it  woke,  and  stabbed  my  flank 
With  yearnings  for  new  music  and  new  pain. 
"Another  note  against  another  god!" 
I  clamoured;  and  she  answered:  "Bide  my  tune. 
Of  every  heart-wound  I  will  make  a  stop, 
9 


LIFE 

And  drink  thy  life  in  music,  pang  by  pang. 

But  first  thou  must  yield  the  notes  I  stored  in  thee 

At  dawn  beside  the  river.     Take  my  lips." 

She  kissed  me  like  a  lover,  but  I  wept, 
Remembering  that  high  song  against  the  god, 
And  the  old  songs  slept  in  me,  and  I  was  dumb. 

We  came  to  cavernous  foul  places,  blind 
With  harpy-wings,  and  sulphurous  with  the  glare 
Of  sinful  furnaces — where  hunger  toiled, 
And  pleasure  gathered  in  a  starveling  prey, 
And  death  fed  delicately  on  young  bones. 

"Now  sing!"  cried  Life,  and  set  her  lips  to  me. 
"Here  are  gods  also.     Wilt  thou  pipe  for  Dis  ?" 
My  cry  was  drowned  beneath  the  furnace  roar, 
Choked  by  the  sulphur-fumes;  and  beast-lipped  gods 
Laughed  down  on  me,  and  mouthed  the  flutes  of  hell. 

"Now  sing!"  said  Life,  reissuing  to  the  stars; 
And  wrung  a  new  note  from  my  wounded  side. 

So  came  we  to  clear  spaces,  and  the  sea. 
And  now  I  felt  its  volume  in  my  heart, 
10 


LIFE 

And  my  heart  waxed  with  it,  and  Life  played  on  me 
The  song  of  the  Infinite.     "Now  the  stars,"  she  said. 

Then  from  the  utmost  pinnacle  again 

She  poured  me  on  the  wild  sidereal  stream, 

And  I  grew  with  her  great  breathings,  till  we  swept 

The  interstellar  spaces  like  new  worlds 

Loosed  from  the  fiery  ruin  of  a  star. 

Cold,  cold  we  rested  on  black  peaks  again, 

Under  black  skies,  under  a  groping  wind ; 

And  Life,  grown  old,  hugged  me  to  a  numb  breast, 

Pressing  numb  lips  against  me.    Suddenly 

A  blade  of  silver  severed  the  black  peaks 

From  the  black  sky,  and  earth  was  born  again, 

Breathing  and  various,  under  a  god's  feet. 

A  god !    A  god !    I  felt  the  heart  of  Life 

Leap  under  me,  and  my  cold  flanks  shook  again. 

He  bore  no  lyre,  he  rang  no  challenge  out, 

But  Life  warmed  to  him,  warming  me  with  her, 

And  as  he  neared  I  felt  beneath  her  hands 

The  stab  of  a  new  wound  that  sucked  my  soul 

Forth  in  a  new  song  from  my  throbbing  throat. 

"His  name — his  name?"  I  whispered,  but  she  shed 
The  music  faster,  and  I  grew  with  it, 
11 


LIFE 

Became  a  part  of  it,  while  Life  and  I 

Clung  lip  to  lip,  and  I  from  her  wrung  song 

As  she  from  me,  one  song,  one  ecstasy, 

In  indistinguishable  union  blent, 

Till  she  became  the  flute  and  I  the  player. 

And  lo !  the  song  I  played  on  her  was  more 

Than  any  she  had  drawn  from  me;  it  held 

The  stars,  the  peaks,  the  cities,  and  the  sea, 

The  faun's  catch,  the  nymph's  tremor,  and  the  heart 

Of  dreaming  girls,  of  toilers  at  the  desk, 

Apollo's  challenge  on  the  sunrise  slope, 

And  the  hiss  of  the  night-gods  mouthing  flutes  of  hell — 

All,  to  the  dawn-wind's  whisper  in  the  reeds, 

When  Life  first  came,  a  shape  of  mystery, 

Moving  among  us,  and  with  random  stroke 

Severed,  and  rapt  me  from  my  silent  tribe. 

All  this  I  wrung  from  her  in  that  deep  hour, 

While  Love  stood  murmu  ring : ' '  Play  the  god ,  poor  grass ! 

Now,  by  that  hour,  I  am  a  mate  to  thee 
Forever,  Life,  however  spent  and  clogged, 
And  tossed  back  useless  to  my  native  mud ! 
Yea,  groping  for  new  reeds  to  fashion  thee 
New  instruments  of  anguish  and  delight, 
Thy  hand  shall  leap  to  me,  thy  broken  reed, 
12 


LIFE 

Thine  ear  remember  me,  thy  bosom  thrill 
With  the  old  subjection,  then  when  Love  and  I 
Held  thee,  and  fashioned  thee,  and  made  thee  dance 
Like  a  slave-girl  to  her  pipers — yea,  thou  yet 
Shalt  hear  my  call,  and  dropping  all  thy  toys 
Thou 'It  lift  me  to  thy  lips,  Life,  and  once  more 
Pour  the  wild  music  through  me — 


13 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE(1) 

(1564) 

OET  wide  the  window.     Let  me  drink  the  day. 

^  I  loved  light  ever,  light  in  eye  and  brain — 

No  tapers  mirrored  in  long  palace  floors, 

Nor  dedicated  depths  of  silent  aisles, 

But  just  the  common  dusty  wind-blown  day 

That  roofs  earth's  millions. 

O,  too  long  I  walked 

In  that  thrice-sifted  air  that  princes  breathe, 
Nor  felt  the  heaven-wide  jostling  of  the  winds 
And  all  the  ancient  outlawry  of  earth! 
Now  let  me  breathe  and  see. 

This  pilgrimage 

They  call  a  penance — let  them  call  it  that ! 
I  set  my  face  to  the  East  to  shrive  my  soul 
Of  mortal  sin  ?     So  be  it.     If  my  blade 
Once  questioned  living  flesh,  if  once  I  tore 
The  pages  of  the  Book  in  opening  it, 
See  what  the  torn  page  yielded  ere  the  light 
Had  paled  its  buried  characters — and  judge! 
w  See  note  p.  90. 
14 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

The  girl  they  brought  me,  pinioned  hand  and  foot 

In  catalepsy — say  I  should  have  known 

That  trance  had  not  yet  darkened  into  death, 

And  held  my  scalpel.    Well,  suppose  I  knew? 

Sum  up  the  facts — her  life  against  her  death. 

Her  life  ?    The  scum  upon  the  pools  of  pleasure 

Breeds  such  by  thousands.   And  her  death  ?  Perchance 

The  obolus  to  appease  the  ferrying  Shade, 

And  waft  her  into  immortality. 

Think  what  she  purchased  with  that  one  heart-flutter 

That  whispered  its  deep  secret  to  my  blade! 

For,  just  because  her  bosom  fluttered  still, 

It  told  me  more  than  many  rifled  graves; 

Because  I  spoke  too  soon,  she  answered  me, 

Her  vain  life  ripened  to  this  bud  of  death 

As  the  whole  plant  is  forced  into  one  flower, 

All  her  blank  past  a  scroll  on  which  God  wrote 

His  word  of  healing — so  that  the  poor  flesh, 

Which  spread  death  living,  died  to  purchase  life! 

Ah,  no !    The  sin  I  sinned  was  mine,  not  theirs. 
Not  that  they  sent  me  forth  to  wash  away — 
None  of  their  tariffed  frailties,  but  a  deed 
So  far  beyond  their  grasp  of  good  or  ill 
That,  set  to  weigh  it  in  the  Church's  balance, 
15 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

Scarce  would  they  know  which  scale  to  cast  it  in. 
But  I,  I  know.    I  sinned  against  my  will, 
Myself,  my  soul — the  God  within  the  breast: 
Can  any  penance  wash  such  sacrilege  ? 

When  I  was  young  in  Venice,  years  ago, 
I  walked  the  hospice  with  a  Spanish  monk, 
A  solitary  cloistered  in  high  thoughts, 
The  great  Loyola,  whom  I  reckoned  then 
A  mere  refurbisher  of  faded  creeds, 
Expert  to  edge  anew  the  arms  of  faith, 
As  who  should  say,  a  Galenist,  resolved 
To  hold  the  walls  of  dogma  against  fact, 
Experience,  insight,  his  own  self,  if  need  be! 
Ah,  how  I  pitied  him,  mine  own  eyes  set 
Straight  in  the  level  beams  of  Truth,  who  groped 
In  error's  old  deserted  catacombs 
And  lit  his  tapers  upon  empty  graves ! 
Ay,  but  he  held  his  own,  the  monk — more  man 
Than  any  laurelled  cripple  of  the  wars, 
Charles's  spent  shafts;  for  what  he  willed  he  willed, 
As  those  do  that  forerun  the  wheels  of  fate, 
Not  take  their  dust — that  force  the  virgin  hours, 
Hew  life  into  the  likeness  of  themselves 
And  wrest  the  stars  from  their  concurrences. 
16 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

So  firm  his  mould;  but  mine  the  ductile  soul 
That  wears  the  livery  of  circumstance 
And  hangs  obsequious  on  its  suzerain's  eye. 
For  who  rules  now?    The  twilight- flitting  monk, 
Or  I,  that  took  the  morning  like  an  Alp  ? 
He  held  his  own,  I  let  mine  slip  from  me, 
The  birthright  that  no  sovereign  can  restore; 
And  so  ironic  Time  beholds  us  now 
Master  and  slave — he  lord  of  half  the  earth, 
I  ousted  from  my  narrow  heritage. 

For  there's  the  sting!    My  kingdom  knows  me  not. 

Reach  me  that  folio — my  usurper's  title! 

Fallopius  reigning,  vice — nay,  not  so: 

Successor,  not  usurper.     I  am  dead. 

My  throne  stood  empty;  he  was  heir  to  it. 

Ay,  but  who  hewed  his  kingdom  from  the  waste, 

Cleared,  inch  by  inch,  the  acres  for  his  sowing, 

Won  back  for  man  that  ancient  fief  o'  the  Church, 

His  body  ?    Who  flung  Galen  from  his  seat, 

And  founded  the  great  dynasty  of  truth 

In  error's  central  kingdom  ? 

Ask  men  that, 

And  see  their  answer:  just  a  wondering  stare 
To  learn  things  were  not  always  as  they 

17 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

The  very  fight  forgotten  with  the  fighter; 
Already  grows  the  moss  upon  my  grave! 
Ay,  and  so  meet — hold  fast  to  that,  Vesalius. 
They  only,  who  re-conquer  day  by  day 
The  inch  of  ground  they  camped  on  over-night, 
Have  right  of  foothold  on  this  crowded  earth. 
I  left  mine  own;  he  seized  it;  with  it  went 
My  name,  my  fame,  my  very  self,  it  seems, 
Till  I  am  but  the  symbol  of  a  man, 
The  sign-board  creaking  o'er  an  empty  inn. 
He  names  me — true!     " Oh,  give  the  door  its  due 
I  entered  by.     Only,  I  pray  you,  note, 
Had  door  been  none,  a  shoulder-thrust  of  mine 
Had  breached  the  crazy  wall" — he  seems  to  say. 
So  meet — and  yet  a  word  of  thanks,  of  praise, 
Of  recognition  that  the  clue  was  found, 
Seized,  followed,  clung  to,  by  some  hand  now  dust- 
Had  this  obscured  his  quartering  of  my  shield  ? 

How  the  one  weakness  stirs  again !     I  thought 
I  had  done  with  that  old  thirst  for  gratitude 
That  lured  me  to  the  desert  years  ago. 
I  did  my  work — and  was  not  that  enough  ? 
No;  but  because  the  idlers  sneered  and  shrugged, 
The  envious  whispered,  the  traducers  lied, 
18 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

And  friendship  doubted  where  it  should  have  cheered, 

I  flung  aside  the  unfinished  task,  sought  praise 

Outside  my  soul's  esteem,  and  learned  too  late 

That  victory,  like  God's  kingdom,  is  within. 

(Nay,  let  the  folio  rest  upon  my  knee. 

I  do  not  feel  its  weight.)    Ingratitude  ? 

The  hurrying  traveller  does  not  ask  the  name 

Of  him  who  points  him  on  his  way;  and  this 

Fallopius  sits  in  the  mid-heart  of  me, 

Because  he  keeps  his  eye  upon  the  goal, 

Cuts  a  straight  furrow  to  the  end  in  view, 

Cares  not  who  oped  the  fountain  by  the  way, 

But  drinks  to  draw  fresh  courage  for  his  journey. 

That  was  the  lesson  that  Ignatius  taught — 

The  one  I  might  have  learned  from  him,  but  would  not — 

That  we  are  but  stray  atoms  on  the  wind, 

A  dancing  transiency  of  summer  eves, 

Till  we  become  one  with  our  purpose,  merged 

In  that  vast  effort  of  the  race  which  makes 

Mortality  immortal. 

"  He  that  loseth 

His  life  shall  find  it":  so  the  Scripture  runs. 
But  I  so  hugged  the  fleeting  self  in  me, 
So  loved  the  lovely  perishable  hours, 
So  kissed  myself  to  death  upon  their  lips, 
19 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

That  on  one  pyre  we  perished  in  the  end — 
A  grimmer  bonfire  than  the  Church  e'er  lit ! 
Yet  all  was  well — or  seemed  so — till  I  heard 
That  younger  voice,  an  echo  of  my  own, 
And,  like  a  wanderer  turning  to  his  home, 
Who  finds  another  on  the  hearth,  and  learns, 
Half-dazed,  that  other  is  his  actual  self 
In  name  and  claim,  as  the  whole  parish  swears, 
So  strangely,  suddenly,  stood  dispossessed 
Of  that  same  self  I  had  sold  all  to  keep, 
A  baffled  ghost  that  none  would  see  or  hear! 
"Vesalius?    Who's  Vesalius?    This  Fallopius 
It  is  who  dragged  the  Galen-idol  down, 
Who  rent  the  veil  of  flesh  and  forced  a  way 
Into  the  secret  fortalice  of  life" — 
Yet  it  was  I  that  bore  the  brunt  of  it! 

Well,  better  so!    Better  awake  and  live 
My  last  brief  moment  as  the  man  I  was, 
Than  lapse  from  life's  long  lethargy  to  death 
Without  one  conscious  interval.    At  least 
I  repossess  my  past,  am  once  again 
No  courtier  med'cining  the  whims  of  kings 
In  muffled  palace-chambers,  but  the  free 
Friendless  Vesalius,  with  his  back  to  the  wall 
20 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

And  all  the  world  against  him.    O,  for  that 

Best  gift  of  all,  Fallopius,  take  my  thanks — 

That,  and  much  more.    At  first,  when  Padua  wrote: 

"Master,  Fallopius  dead,  resume  again 

The  chair  even  he  could  not  completely  fill, 

And  see  what  usury  age  shall  take  of  youth 

In  honours  forfeited" — why,  just  at  first, 

I  was  quite  simply  credulously  glad 

To  think  the  old  life  stood  ajar  for  me, 

Like  a  fond  woman's  unforgetting  heart. 

But  now  that  death  waylays  me — now  I  know 

This  isle  is  the  circumference  of  my  days, 

And  I  shall  die  here  in  a  little  while — 

So  also  best,  Fallopius! 

For  I  see 

The  gods  may  give  anew,  but  not  restore; 
And  though  I  think  that,  in  my  chair  again, 
I  might  have  argued  my  supplanters  wrong 
In  this  or  that — this  Cesalpinus,  say, 
With  all  his  hot-foot  blundering  in  the  dark, 
Fabricius,  with  his  over-cautious  clutch 
On  Galen  (systole  and  diastole 
Of  Truth's  mysterious  heart!) — yet,  other  ways, 
It  may  be  that  this  dying  serves  the  cause. 
For  Truth  stays  not  to  build  her  monument 
21 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

For  this  or  that  co-operating  hand, 

But  props  it  with  her  servants'  failures — nay, 

Cements  its  courses  with  their  blood  and  brains, 

A  living  substance  that  shall  clinch  her  walls 

Against  the  assaults  of  time.    Already,  see, 

Her  scaffold  rises  on  my  hidden  toil, 

I  but  the  accepted  premiss  whence  must  spring 

The  airy  structure  of  her  argument; 

Nor  could  the  bricks  it  rests  on  serve  to  build 

The  crowning  finials.    I  abide  her  law : 

A  different  substance  for  a  different  end — 

Content  to  know  I  hold  the  building  up; 

Though  men,  agape  at  dome  and  pinnacles, 

Guess  not,  the  whole  must  crumble  like  a  dream 

But  for  that  buried  labour  underneath. 

Yet,  Padua,  I  had  still  my  word  to  say! 

Let  others  say  it! — Ah,  but  will  they  guess 

Just  the  one  word —  ?   Nay,  Truth  is  many-tongued . 

What  one  man  failed  to  speak,  another  finds 

Another  word  for.    May  not  all  converge 

In  some  vast  utterance,  of  which  you  and  I, 

Fallopius,  were  but  halting  syllables  ? 

So  knowledge  come,  no  matter  how  it  comes! 

No  matter  whence  the  light  falls,  so  it  fall ! 

Truth's  way,  not  mine — that  I,  whose  service  failed 


VESALIUS    IN    ZANTE 

In  action,  yet  may  make  amends  in  praise. 
Fabricius,  Cesalpinus,  say  your  word, 
Not  yours,  or  mine,  but  Truth's,  as  you  receive  it! 
You  miss  a  point  I  saw  ?    See  others,  then ! 
Misread  my  meaning  ?    Yet  expound  your  own ! 
Obscure  one  space  I  cleared  ?    The  sky  is  wide, 
And  you  may  yet  uncover  other  stars. 
For  thus  I  read  the  meaning  of  this  end: 
There  are  two  ways  of  spreading  light;  to  be 
The  candle  or  the  mirror  that  reflects  it. 
I  let  my  wick  burn  out — there  yet  remains 
To  spread  an  answering  surface  to  the  flame 
That  others  kindle. 

Turn  me  in  my  bed. 

The  window  darkens  as  the  hours  swing  round; 
But  yonder,  look,  the  other  casement  glows! 
Let  me  face  westward  as  my  sun  goes  down. 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

A  PAOLO,  since  they  say  the  end  is  near, 
And  you  of  all  men  have  the  gentlest  eyes, 
Most  like  our  father  Francis;   since  you  know 
How  I  have  toiled  and  prayed  and  scourged  and  striven, 
Mothered  the  orphan,  waked  beside  the  sick, 
Gone  empty  that  mine  enemy  might  eat, 
Given  bread  for  stones  in  famine  years,  and  channelled 
With  vigilant  knees  the  pavement  of  this  cell, 
Till  I  constrained  the  Christ  upon  the  wall 
To  bend  His  thorn-crowned  Head  in  mute  forgiveness  .  .  . 
Three  times  He  bowed  it  ...  (but  the  whole  stands  writ, 
Sealed  with  the  Bishop's  signet,  as  you  know), 

Once  for  each  person  of  the  Blessed  Three 

A  miracle  that  the  whole  town  attests, 

The  very  babes  thrust  forward  for  my  blessing, 

And  either  parish  plotting  for  my  bones 

Since  this  you  know:  sit  near  and  bear  with  me. 

I  have  lain  here,  these  many  empty  days 

I  thought  to  pack  with  Credos  and  Hail  Marys 

So  close  that  not  a  fear  should  force  the  door 

But  still,  between  the  blessed  syllables 

24 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

That  taper  up  like  blazing  angel  heads, 

Praise  over  praise,  to  the  Unutterable, 

Strange  questions  clutch  me,  thrusting  fiery  arms, 

As  though,  athwart  the  close-meshed  litanies, 

My  dead  should  pluck  at  me  from  hell,  with  eyes 

Alive  in  their  obliterated  faces !  .  .  . 

I  have  tried  the  saints'  names  and  our  blessed  Mother's, 

Fra  Paolo,  I  have  tried  them  o'er  and  o'er, 

And  like  a  blade  bent  backward  at  first  thrust 

They  yield  and  fail  me and  the  questions  stay. 

And  so  I  thought,  into  some  human  heart, 
Pure,  and  yet  foot-worn  with  the  tread  of  sin, 
If  only  I  might  creep  for  sanctuary, 
It  might  be  that  those  eyes  would  let  me  rest.  .  . 

Fra  Paolo,  listen.    How  should  I  forget 
The  day  I  saw  him  first  ?    (You  know  the  one.) 
I  had  been  laughing  in  the  market-place 
With  others  like  me,  I  the  youngest  there, 
Jostling  about  a  pack  of  mountebanks 
Like  flies  on  carrion  (I  the  youngest  there!), 
Till  darkness  fell;  and  while  the  other  girls 
Turned  this  way,  that  way,  as  perdition  beckoned, 
I,  wondering  what  the  night  would  bring,  half  hoping: 
If  not,  this  once,  a  child's  sleep  in  my  garret, 
25 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

At  least  enough  to  buy  that  two-pronged  coral 
The  others  covet  'gainst  the  evil  eye, 

Since,  after  all,  one  sees  that  I'm  the  youngest 

So,  muttering  my  litany  to  hell 

(The  only  prayer  I  knew  that  was  not  Latin) , 

Felt  on  my  arm  a  touch  as  kind  as  yours, 

And  heard  a  voice  as  kind  as  yours  say  "Come." 

I  turned  and  went;  and  from  that  day  I  never 

Looked  on  the  face  of  any  other  man. 

So  much  is  known;  so  much  effaced;  the  sin 

Cast  like  a  plague-struck  body  to  the  sea, 

Deep,  deep  into  the  unfathomable  pardon 

(The  Head  bowed  thrice,  as  the  whole  town  attests). 
What  more,  then  ?  To  what  purpose  ?  Bear  with  me ! 

It  seems  that  he,  a  stranger  in  the  place, 
First  noted  me  that  afternoon  and  wondered: 
How  grew  so  white  a  bud  in  such  black  slime, 
And  why  not  mine  the  hand  to  pluck  it  out  ? 

Why,  so  Christ  deals  with  souls,  you  cry what  then  ? 

Not  so !    Not  so !    When  Christ,  the  heavenly  gardener, 
Plucks  flowers  for  Paradise  (do  I  not  know?), 
He  snaps  the  stem  above  the  root,  and  presses 
The  ransomed  soul  between  two  convent  walls, 
A  lifeless  blossom  in  the  Book  of  Life. 
26 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

But  when  my  lover  gathered  me,  he  lifted 
Stem,  root  and  all — ay,  and  the  clinging  mud — 
And  set  me  on  his  sill  to  spread  and  bloom 
After  the  common  way,  take  sun  and  rain, 
And  make  a  patch  of  brightness  for  the  street, 

Though  raised  above  rough  fingers so  you  make 

A  weed  a  flower,  and  others,  passing,  think: 

"Next  ditch  I  cross,  I'll  lift  a  root  from  it, 

And  dress  my  window  "...  and  the  blessing  spreads. 

Well,  so  I  grew,  with  every  root  and  tendril 

Grappling  the  secret  anchorage  of  his  love, 

And  so  we  loved  each  other  till  he  died.  .  .  . 

Ah,  that  black  night  he  left  me,  that  dead  dawn 
I  found  him  lying  in  the  woods,  alive 
To  gasp  my  name  out  and  his  life-blood  with  it, 
As  though  the  murderer's  knife  had  probed  for  me 
In  his  hacked  breast  and  found  me  in  each  wound.  .  . 
Well,  it  was  there  Christ  came  to  me,  you  know, 

And  led  me  home just  as  that  other  led  me. 

(Just  as  that  oilier  ?    Father,  bear  with  me!) 
My  lover's  death,  they  tell  me,  saved  my  soul, 
And  I  have  lived  to  be  a  light  to  men, 
And  gather  sinners  to  the  knees  of  grace. 


27 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

All  this,  you  say,  the  Bishop's  signet  covers. 
But  stay !    Suppose  my  lover  had  not  died  ? 
(At  last  my  question !    Father,  help  me  face  it.) 
I  say:  Suppose  my  lover  had  not  died — 
Think  you  I  ever  would  have  left  him  living, 
Even  to  be  Christ's  blessed  Margaret  ? 

— We  lived  in  sin  ?    Why,  to  the  sin  I  died  to 
That  other  was  as  Paradise,  when  God 
Walks  there  at  eventide,  the  air  pure  gold, 
And  angels  treading  all  the  grass  to  flowers! 

He  was  my  Christ he  led  me  out  of  hell 

He  died  to  save  me  (so  your  casuists  say!) 

Could  Christ  do  more  ?    Your  Christ  out-pity  mine  ? 
Why,  yours  but  let  the  sinner  bathe  His  feet; 
Mine  raised  her  to  the  level  of  his  heart.  .  . 
And  then  Christ's  way  is  saving,  as  man's  way 

Is  squandering and  the  devil  take  the  shards! 

But  this  man  kept  for  sacramental  use 
The  cup  that  once  had  slaked  a  passing  thirst; 
This  man  declared:  "The  same  clay  serves  to  model 
A  devil  or  a  saint;  the  scribe  may  stain 
The  same  fair  parchment  with  obscenities, 
Or  gild  with  benedictions;  nay,"  he  cried, 
"Because  a  satyr  feasted  in  this  wood, 
And  fouled  the  grasses  with  carousing  foot, 
28 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

Shall  not  a  hermit  build  his  chapel  here 
And  cleanse  the  echoes  with  his  litanies  ? 
The  sodden  grasses  spring  again — why  not 
The  trampled  soul  ?    Is  man  less  merciful 
Than  nature,  good  more  fugitive  than  grass  ?  " 

And  so if,  after  all,  he  had  not  died, 

And  suddenly  that  door  should  know  his  hand, 

And  with  that  voice  as  kind  as  yours  he  said : 

"Come,  Margaret,  forth  into  the  sun  again, 

Back  to  the  life  we  fashioned  with  our  hands 

Out  of  old  sins  and  follies,  fragments  scorned 

Of  more  ambitious  builders,  yet  by  Love, 

The  patient  architect,  so  shaped  and  fitted 

That  not  a  crevice  let  the  winter  in — 

Think  you  my  bones  would  not  arise  and  walk, 

This  bruised  body  (as  once  the  bruised  soul) 

Turn  from  the  wonders  of  the  seventh  heaven 

As  from  the  antics  of  the  market-place  ? 

If  this  could  be  (as  I  so  oft  have  dreamed) , 

I,  who  have  known  both  loves,  divine  and  human, 

Think  you  I  would  not  leave  this  Christ  for  that  ? 

1  rave,  you  say  ?    You  start  from  me,  Fra  Paolo  ? 

Go,  then;  your  going  leaves  me  not  alone. 
I  marvel,  rather,  that  I  feared  the  question, 
29 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

Since,  now  I  name  it,  it  draws  near  to  me 
With  such  dear  reassurance  in  its  eyes, 
And  takes  your  place  beside  me.  .  . 

Nay,  I  tell  you, 

Fra  Paolo,  I  have  cried  on  all  the  saints 

If  this  be  devil's  prompting,  let  them  drown  it 

In  Alleluias!    Yet  not  one  replies. 

And,  for  the  Christ  there — is  He  silent  too  ? 

Your  Christ  ?    Poor  father;  you  that  have  but  one, 

And  that  one  silent how  I  pity  you! 

He  will  not  answer  ?    Will  not  help  you  cast 
The  devil  out  ?    But  hangs  there  on  the  wall, 
Blind  wood  and  bone ? 

How  if  /  call  on  Him 

I,  whom  He  talks  with,  as  the  town  attests  ? 

If  ever  prayer  hath  ravished  me  so  high 

That  its  wings  failed  and  dropped  me  in  Thy  breast, 

Christ,  I  adjure  Thee!    By  that  naked  hour 

Of  innermost  commixture,  when  my  soul 

Contained  Thee  as  the  paten  holds  the  host, 

Judge  Thou  alone  between  this  priest  and  me; 

Nay,  rather,  Lord,  between  my  past  and  present, 

Thy  Margaret  and  that  other's — whose  she  is 

By  right  of  salvage — and  whose  call  should  follow! 

Thine  ?    Silent  still. Or  his,  who  stooped  to  her, 


MARGARET    OF    CORTONA 

And  drew  her  to  Thee  by  the  bands  of  love  ? 
Not  Thine?    Then  his? 

Ah,  Christ the  thorn-crowned  Head 

Bends  .  .  .  bends  again  .  .  .  down  on  your  knees, 

Fra  Paolo! 
If  his,  then  Thine! 

Kneel,  priest,  for  this  is  heaven.  .  . 


31 


A    TORCHBEARER 

RE  AT  cities  rise  and  have  their  fall;  the  brass 
That  held  their  glories  moulders  in  its  turn, 
Hard  granite  rots  like  an  uprooted  weed, 
And  ever  on  the  palimpsest  of  earth 
Impatient  Time  rubs  out  the  word  he  writ. 
But  one  thing  makes  the  years  its  pedestal, 
Springs  from  the  ashes  of  its  pyre,  and  claps 
A  skyward  wing  above  its  epitaph — 
The  will  of  man  willing  immortal  things. 

The  ages  are  but  baubles  hung  upon 
The  thread  of  some  strong  lives — and  one  slight  wrist 
May  lift  a  century  above  the  dust; 
For  Time, 

The  Sisyphean  load  of  little  lives, 
Becomes  the  globe  and  sceptre  of  the  great. 
But  who  are  these  that,  linking  hand  in  hand, 
Transmit  across  the  twilight  waste  of  years 
The  flying  brightness  of  a  kindled  hour  ? 
Not  always,  nor  alone,  the  lives  that  search 
How  they  may  snatch  a  glory  out  of  heaven 
Or  add  a  height  to  Babel;  oftener  they 
32 


A    TORCHBEARER 

That  in  the  still  fulfilment  of  each  day's 
Pacific  order  hold  great  deeds  in  leash, 
That  in  the  sober  sheath  of  tranquil  tasks 
Hide  the  attempered  blade  of  high  emprise, 
And  leap  like  lightning  to  the  clap  of  fate. 

So  greatly  gave  he,  nurturing  'gainst  the  call 

Of  one  rare  moment  all  the  daily  store 

Of  joy  distilled  from  the  acquitted  task, 

And  that  deliberate  rashness  which  bespeaks 

The  pondered  action  passed  into  the  blood; 

So  swift  to  harden  purpose  into  deed 

That,  with  the  wind  of  ruin  in  his  hair, 

Soul  sprang  full-statured  from  the  broken  flesh, 

And  at  one  stroke  he  lived  the  whole  of  life, 

Poured  all  in  one  libation  to  the  truth, 

A  brimming  flood  whose  drops  shall  overflow 

On  deserts  of  the  soul  long  beaten  down 

By  the  brute  hoof  of  habit,  till  they  spring 

In  manifold  upheaval  to  the  sun. 

Call  here  no  high  artificer  to  raise 
His  wordy  monument — such  lives  as  these 
Make  death  a  dull  misnomer  and  its  pomp 
An  empty  vesture.    Let  resounding  lives 
33 


A    TORCHBEARER 

Re-echo  splendidly  through  high-piled  vaults 
And  make  the  grave  their  spokesman — such  as  he 
Are  as  the  hidden  streams  that,  underground, 
Sweeten  the  pastures  for  the  grazing  kine, 
Or  as  spring  airs  that  bring  through  prison  bars 
The  scent  of  freedom;  or  a  light  that  burns 
Immutably  across  the  shaken  seas, 
Forevennore  by  nameless  hands  renewed, 
Where  else  were  darkness  and  a  glutted  shore. 


34 


II 


THE    MORTAL   LEASE 


EC AUSE  the  currents  of  our  love  are  poured 
Through  the  slow  welter  of  the  primal  flood 
From  some  blind  source  of  monster-haunted  mud, 
And  flung  together  by  random  forces  stored 
Ere  the  vast  void  with  rushing  worlds  was  scored — 
Because  we  know  ourselves  but  the  dim  scud 
Tossed  from  their  heedless  keels,  the  sea-blown  bud 
That  wastes  and  scatters  ere  the  wave  has  roared — 

Because  we  have  this  knowledge  in  our  veins, 
Shall  we  deny  the  journey's  gathered  lore — 
The  great  refusals  and  the  long  disdains, 
The  stubborn  questing  for  a  phantom  shore, 
The  sleepless  hopes  and  memorable  pains, 
And  all  mortality's  immortal  gains  ? 


37 


THE    MORTAL    LEASE 


II 

Because  our  kiss  is  as  the  moon  to  draw 
The  mounting  waters  of  that  red-lit  sea 
That  circles  brain  with  sense,  and  bids  us  be 
The  playthings  of  an  elemental  law, 
Shall  we  forego  the  deeper  touch  of  awe 
On  love's  extremest  pinnacle,  where  we, 
Winging  the  vistas  of  infinity, 
Gigantic  on  the  mist  our  shadows  saw  ? 

Shall  kinship  with  the  dim  first-moving  clod 
Not  draw  the  folded  pinion  from  the  soul, 
And  shall  we  not,  by  spirals  vision-trod, 
Reach  upward  to  some  still-retreating  goal, 
As  earth,  escaping  from  the  night's  control, 
Drinks  at  the  founts  of  morning  like  a  god  ? 


THE    MORTAL    LEASE 


III 

All,  all  is  sweet  in  that  commingled  draught 
Mysterious,  that  life  pours  for  lovers'  thirst, 
And  I  would  meet  your  passion  as  the  first 
Wild  woodland  woman  met  her  captor's  craft, 
Or  as  the  Greek  whose  fearless  beauty  laughed 
And  doffed  her  raiment  by  the  Attic  flood; 
But  in  the  streams  of  my  belated  blood 
Flow  all  the  warring  potions  love  has  quaffed. 

How  can  I  be  to  you  the  nymph  who  danced 

Smooth  by  Ilissus  as  the  plane-tree's  bole, 

Or  how  the  Nereid  whose  drenched  lashes  glanced 

Like  sea- flowers  through  the  summer  sea's  long  roll- 

I  that  have  also  been  the  nun  entranced 

Who  night-long  held  her  Bridegroom  in  her  soul  ? 


39 


THE    MORTAL    LEASE 


IV 

"Sad  Immortality  is  dead,"  you  say, 
"And  all  her  grey  brood  banished  from  the  soul; 
Life,  like  the  earth,  is  now  a  rounded  whole, 
The  orb  of  man's  dominion.    Live  to-day." 
And  every  sense  in  me  leapt  to  obey, 
Seeing  the  routed  phantoms  backward  roll; 
But  from  their  waning  throng  a  whisper  stole, 
And  touched  the  morning  splendour  with  decay. 

"Sad  Immortality  is  dead;  and  we 

The  funeral  train  that  bear  her  to  her  grave. 

Yet  hath  she  left  a  two-faced  progeny 

In  hearts  of  men,  and  some  will  always  see 

The  skull  beneath  the  wreath,  yet  always  crave 

In  every  kiss  the  folded  kiss  to  be." 


40 


THE    MORTAL    LEASE 


V 

Yet  for  one  rounded  moment  I  will  be 

No  more  to  you  than  what  my  lips  may  give, 

And  in  the  circle  of  your  kisses  live 

As  in  some  island  of  a  storm-blown  sea, 

Where  the  cold  surges  of  infinity 

Upon  the  outward  reefs  unheeded  grieve, 

And  the  loud  murmur  of  our  blood  shall  weave 

Primeval  silences  round  you  and  me. 

If  in  that  moment  we  are  all  we  are 

We  live  enough.    Let  this  for  all  requite. 

Do  I  not  know,  some  winged  things  from  far 

Are  borne  along  illimitable  night 

To  dance  their  lives  out  in  a  single  flight 

Between  the  moonrise  and  the  setting  star  ? 


41 


THE    MORTAL    LEASE 


VI 

The  Moment  came,  with  sacramental  cup 
Lifted — and  all  the  vault  of  life  grew  bright 
With  tides  of  incommensurable  light — 
But  tremblingly  I  turned  and  covered  up 
My  face  before  the  wonder.    Down  the  slope 
I  heard  her  feet  in  irretrievable  flight, 
And  when  I  looked  again,  my  stricken  sight 
Saw  night  and  rain  in  a  dead  world  agrope. 

Now  walks  her  ghost  beside  me,  whispering 
With  lips  derisive:  "Thou  that  wouldst  forego — 
What  god  assured  thee  that  the  cup  I  bring 
Globes  not  in  every  drop  the  cosmic  show, 
All  that  the  insatiate  heart  of  man  can  wring 
From  life's  long  vintage  ? — Now  thou  shalt  not  know. 


THE    MORTAL    LEASE 


VII 

Shall  I  not  know  ?    I,  that  could  always  catch 
The  sunrise  in  one  beam  along  the  wall, 
The  nests  of  June  in  April's  mating  call, 
And  ruinous  autumn  in  the  wind's  first  snatch 
At  summer's  green  impenetrable  thatch — 
That  always  knew  far  off  the  secret  fall 
Of  a  god's  feet  across  the  city's  brawl, 
The  touch  of  silent  fingers  on  my  latch  ? 

Not  thou,  vain  Moment!    Something  more  than  thou 
Shall  write  the  score  of  what  mine  eyes  have  wept, 
The  touch  of  kisses  that  have  missed  my  brow, 
The  murmur  of  wings  that  brushed  me  while  I  slept, 
And  some  mute  angel  in  the  breast  even  now 
Measures  my  loss  by  all  that  I  have  kept. 


43 


THE    MORTAL    LEASE 


VIII 

Strive  we  no  more.    Some  hearts  are  like  the  bright 
Tree-chequered  spaces,  flecked  with  sun  and  shade, 
Where  gathered  in  old  days  the  youth  and  maid 
To  woo,  and  weave  their  dances;  with  the  night 
They  cease  their  flutings,  and  the  next  day's  light 
Finds  the  smooth  green  unconscious  of  their  tread, 
And  ready  its  velvet  pliancies  to  spread 
Under  fresh  feet,  till  these  in  turn  take  flight. 

But  other  hearts  a  long  long  road  doth  span, 
From  some  far  region  of  old  works  and  wars, 
And  the  weary  armies  of  the  thoughts  of  man 
Have  trampled  it,  and  furrowed  it  with  scars, 
And  sometimes,  husht,  a  sacred  caravan 
Moves  over  it  alone,  beneath  the  stars. 


EXPERIENCE 
I 

T  IKE  Crusoe  with  the  bootless  gold  we  stand 
•*— '  Upon  the  desert  verge  of  death,  and  say : 
"  What  shall  avail  the  woes  of  yesterday 
To  buy  to-morrow's  wisdom,  in  the  land 
Whose  currency  is  strange  unto  our  hand  ? 
In  life's  small  market  they  had  served  to  pay 
Some  late-found  rapture,  could  we  but  delay 
Till  Time  hath  matched  our  means  to  our  demand. 

But  otherwise  Fate  wills  it,  for,  behold, 
Our  gathered  strength  of  individual  pain, 
When  Time's  long  alchemy  hath  made  it  gold, 
Dies  with  us — hoarded  all  these  years  in  vain, 
Since  those  that  might  be  heir  to  it  the  mould 
Renew,  and  coin  themselves  new  griefs  again. 


45 


EXPERIENCE 


II 

O  Death,  we  come  full-handed  to  thy  gate, 
Rich  with  strange  burden  of  the  mingled  years, 
Gains  and  renunciations,  mirth  and  tears, 
And  love's  oblivion,  and  remembering  hate, 
Nor  know  we  what  compulsion  laid  such  freight 
Upon  our  souls — and  shall  our  hopes  and  fears 
Buy  nothing  of  thee,  Death  ?    Behold  our  wares, 
And  sell  us  the  one  joy  for  which  we  wait. 
Had  we  lived  longer,  life  had  such  for  sale, 
With  the  last  coin  of  sorrow  purchased  cheap, 
But  now  we  stand  before  thy  shadowy  pale, 
And  all  our  longings  lie  within  thy  keep — 
Death,  can  it  be  the  years  shall  naught  avail  ? 

"Not  so,"  Death  answered,  "they  shall  purchase  sleep." 


46 


GRIEF 
I 

ON  immemorial  altitudes  august 
Grief  holds  her  high  dominion.    Bold  the  feet 
That  climb  unblenching  to  that  stern  retreat 
Whence,  looking  down,  man  knows  himself  but  dust. 
There  lie  the  mightiest  passions,  earthward  thrust 
Beneath  her  regnant  footstool,  and  there  meet 
Pale  ghosts  of  buried  longings  that  were  sweet, 
With  many  an  abdicated  "shall"  and  "must." 

For  there  she  rules  omnipotent,  whose  will 
Compels  a  mute  acceptance  of  her  chart; 
Who  holds  the  world,  and  lo!  it  cannot  fill 
Her  mighty  hand ;  who  will  be  served  apart 
With  uncommunicable  rites,  and  still 
Surrender  of  the  undivided  heart. 


47 


GRIEF 


II 

She  holds  the  world  within  her  mighty  hand, 
And  lo !  it  is  a  toy  for  babes  to  toss, 
And  all  its  shining  imagery  but  dross, 
To  those  that  in  her  awful  presence  stand; 
As  sun-confronting  eagles  o'er  the  land 
That  lies  below,  they  send  their  gaze  across 
The  common  intervals  of  gain  and  loss, 
And  hope's  infinitude  without  a  strand. 

But  he  who,  on  that  lonely  eminence, 
Watches  too  long  the  whirling  of  the  spheres 
Through  dim  eternities,  descending  thence 
The  voices  of  his  kind  no  longer  hears, 
And,  blinded  by  the  spectacle  immense, 
Journeys  alone  through  all  the  after  years. 


48 


CHARTRES 
I 

IMMENSE,  august,  like  some  Titanic  bloom, 
*•       The  mighty  choir  unfolds  its  lithic  core, 
Petalled  with  panes  of  azure,  gules  and  or, 

Splendidly  lambent  in  the  Gothic  gloom, 
And  stamened  with  keen  flamelets  that  illume 

The  pale  high-altar.    On  the  prayer-worn  floor, 
By  worshippers  innumerous  thronged  of  yore, 

A  few  brown  crones,  familiars  of  the  tomb, 
The  stranded  driftwood  of  Faith's  ebbing  sea — 

For  these  alone  the  finials  fret  the  skies, 
The  topmost  bosses  shake  their  blossoms  free, 

While  from  the  triple  portals,  with  grave  eyes, 
Tranquil,  and  fixed  upon  eternity, 

The  cloud  of  witnesses  still  testifies, 


49 


CHARTRES 


II 

The  crimson  panes  like  blood-drops  stigmatise 

The  western  floor.    The  aisles  are  mute  and  cold. 
A  rigid  fetich  in  her  robe  of  gold, 

The  Virgin  of  the  Pillar,  with  blank  eyes, 
Enthroned  beneath  her  votive  canopies, 

Gathers  a  meagre  remnant  to  her  fold. 
The  rest  is  solitude;  the  church,  grown  old, 

Stands  stark  and  grey  beneath  the  burning  skies. 
Well-nigh  again  its  mighty  framework  grows 

To  be  a  part  of  nature's  self,  withdrawn 
From  hot  humanity's  impatient  woes; 

The  floor  is  ridged  like  some  rude  mountain  lawn, 
And  in  the  east  one  giant  window  shows 

The  roseate  coldness  of  an  Alp  at  dawn. 


50 


TWO    BACKGROUNDS 

I 

LA   VIERGE   AU    DONATEUR 

T  T  ERE  by  the  ample  river's  argent  sweep, 
•*•  *  Bosomed  in  tilth  and  vintage  to  her  walls, 
A  tower-crowned  Cybele  in  armoured  sleep 
The  city  lies,  fat  plenty  in  her  halls, 
With  calm  parochial  spires  that  hold  in  fee 
The  friendly  gables  clustered  at  their  base, 
And,  equipoised  o'er  tower  and  market-place, 
The  Gothic  minster's  winged  immensity; 
And  in  that  narrow  burgh,  with  equal  mood, 
Two  placid  hearts,  to  all  life's  good  resigned, 
Might,  from  the  altar  to  the  lych-gate,  find 
Long  years  of  peace  and  dreamless  plenitude. 


51 


TWO    BACKGROUNDS 


II 

MONA    LISA 

Yon  strange  blue  city  crowns  a  scarped  steep 
No  mortal  foot  hath  bloodlessly  essayed; 
Dreams  and  illusions  beacon  from  its  keep, 
But  at  the  gate  an  Angel  bares  his  blade; 
And  tales  are  told  of  those  who  thought  to  gain 
At  dawn  its  ramparts;   but  when  evening  fell 
Far  off  they  saw  each  fading  pinnacle 
Lit  with  wild  lightnings  from  the  heaven  of  pain; 
Yet  there  two  souls,  whom  life's  perversities 
Had  mocked  with  want  in  plenty,  tears  in  mirth, 
Might  meet  in  dreams,  ungarmented  of  earth, 
And  drain  Joy's  awful  chalice  to  the  lees. 


THE    TOMB    OF    ILARIA 
GIUNIGI 

T  LARIA,  thou  that  wert  so  fair  and  dear 

*  That  death  would  fain  disown  thee,  grief  made  wise 

With  prophecy  thy  husband's  widowed  eyes, 

And  bade  him  call  the  master's  art  to  rear 

Thy  perfect  image  on  the  sculptured  bier, 

With  dreaming  lids,  hands  laid  in  peaceful  guise 

Beneath  the  breast  that  seems  to  fall  and  rise, 

And  lips  that  at  love's  call  should  answer  "Here!" 

First-born  of  the  Renascence,  when  thy  soul 
Cast  the  sweet  robing  of  the  flesh  aside, 
Into  these  lovelier  marble  limbs  it  stole, 
Regenerate  in  art's  sunrise  clear  and  wide, 
As  saints  who,  having  kept  faith's  raiment  whole, 
Change  it  above  for  garments  glorified. 


53 


THE    ONE    GRIEF 

NE  grief  there  is,  the  helpmeet  of  my  heart, 
That  shall  not  from  me  till  my  days  be  sped, 
That  walks  beside  me  in  sunshine  and  in  shade, 
And  hath  in  all  my  fortunes  equal  part. 
At  first  I  feared  it,  and  would  often  start 
Aghast  to  find  it  bending  o'er  my  bed, 
Till  usage  slowly  dulled  the  edge  of  dread, 
And  one  cold  night  I  cried:  How  warm  thou  art! 

Since  then  we  two  have  travelled  hand  in  hand, 
And,  lo,  my  grief  has  been  interpreter 

For  me  in  many  a  fierce  and  alien  land 

Whose  speech  young  Joy  had  failed  to  understand, 
Plucking  me  tribute  of  red  gold  and  myrrh 

From  desolate  whirlings  of  the  desert  sand. 


THE    EUMENIDES 

THINK  you  we  slept  within  the  Delphic  bower, 
What  time  our  victim  sought  Apollo's  grace  ? 
Nay,  drawn  into  ourselves,  in  that  deep  place 
Where  good  and  evil  meet,  we  bode  our  hour. 
For  not  inexorable  is  our  power, 
And  we  are  hunted  of  the  prey  we  chase, 
Soonest  gain  ground  on  them  that  flee  apace, 
And  draw  temerity  from  hearts  that  cower. 

Shuddering  we  gather  in  the  house  of  ruth, 
And  on  the  fearful  turn  a  face  of  fear, 
But  they  to  whom  the  ways  of  doom  are  clear 
Not  vainly  named  us  the  Eumenides. 
Our  feet  are  faithful  in  the  paths  of  truth, 
And  in  the  constant  heart  we  house  at  peace. 


Ill 


ORPHEUS 

Love  will  make  men  dare  to  die  for  their  beloved.  .  .  Of  this  Alcestis  is 
a  monument ...  /or  she  was  willing  to  lay  down  her  life  for  her  hus- 
band .  .  .  and  so  noble  did  this  appear  to  the  gods  that  they  granted  her 
the  privilege  of  returning  to  earth  .  .  .  but  Orpheus,  the  son  of  (Eagrus, 
they  sent  empty  away.  .  .  — PLATO  :  The  Symposium. 


/^vRPHEUS  the  Harper,  coming  to  the  gate 
^-^  Where  the  implacable  dim  warder  sate, 
Besought  for  parley  with  a  shade  within, 
Dearer  to  him  than  life  itself  had  been, 
Sweeter  than  sunlight  on  Illyrian  sea, 
Or  bloom  of  myrtle,  or  murmur  of  laden  bee, 
Whom  lately  from  his  unconsenting  breast 
The  Fates,  at  some  capricious  blind  behest, 
Intolerably  had  reft — Eurydice, 
Dear  to  the  sunlight  as  Illyrian  sea, 
Sweet  as  the  murmur  of  bees,  or  myrtle  bloom — 
And  uncompanioned  led  her  to  the  tomb. 

There,  solitary  by  the  Stygian  tide, 
Strayed  her  dear  feet,  the  shadow  of  his  own, 
Since,  'mid  the  desolate  millions  who  have  died, 
Each  phantom  walks  its  crowded  path  alone; 


ORPHEUS 

And  there  her  head,  that  slept  upon  his  breast, 
No  more  had  such  sweet  harbour  for  its  rest, 
Nor  her  swift  ear  from  those  disvoiced  throats 
Could  catch  one  echo  of  his  living  notes. 
And,  dreaming  nightly  of  her  pallid  doom, 
No  solace  had  he  of  his  own  young  bloom, 
But  yearned  to  pour  his  blood  into  her  veins 
And  buy  her  back  with  unimagined  pains. 

To  whom  the  Shepherd  of  the  Shadows  said : 
"Yea,  many  thus  would  bargain  for  their  dead; 
But  when  they  hear  my  fatal  gateway  clang 
Life  quivers  in  them  with  a  last  sweet  pang. 
They  see  the  smoke  of  home  above  the  trees, 
The  cordage  whistles  on  the  harbour  breeze; 
The  beaten  path  that  wanders  to  the  shore 
Grows  dear  because  they  shall  not  tread  it  more, 
The  dog  that  drowsing  on  their  threshold  lies 
Looks  at  them  with  their  childhood  in  his  eyes, 
And  in  the  sunset's  melancholy  fall 
They  read  a  sunrise  that  shall  give  them  all." 

"Not  thus  am  I,"  the  Harper  smiled  his  scorn. 
"I  see  no  path  but  those  her  feet  have  worn; 
My  roof-tree  is  the  shadow  of  her  hair, 


ORPHEUS 

And  the  light  breaking  through  her  long  despair 

The  only  sunrise  that  mine  eyelids  crave; 

For  doubly  dead  without  me  in  the  grave 

Is  she  who,  if  my  feet  had  gone  before, 

Had  found  life  dark  as  death's  abhorred  shore." 

The  gate  clanged  on  him,  and  he  went  his  way 
Amid  the  alien  millions,  mute  and  grey, 
Swept  like  a  cold  mist  down  an  unlit  strand, 
Where  nameless  wreckage  gluts  the  stealthy  sand, 
Drift  of  the  cockle-shells  of  hope  and  faith 
Wherein  they  foundered  on  the  rock  of  death. 

So  came  he  to  the  image  that  he  sought 
(Less  living  than  her  semblance  in  his  thought), 
Who,  at  the  summons  of  his  thrilling  notes, 
Drew  back  to  life  as  a  drowned  creature  floats 
Back  to  the  surface;  yet  no  less  is  dead. 
And  cold  fear  smote  him  till  she  spoke  and  said : 
"Art  thou  then  come  to  lay  thy  lips  on  mine, 
And  pour  thy  life's  libation  out  like  wine  ? 
Shall  I,  through  thee,  revisit  earth  again, 
Traverse  the  shining  sea,  the  fruitful  plain, 
Behold  the  house  we  dwelt  in,  lay  my  head 
Upon  the  happy  pillows  of  our  bed, 
61 


ORPHEUS 

And  feel  in  dreams  the  pressure  of  thine  arms 
Kindle  these  pulses  that  no  memory  warms  ? 
Nay:  give  me  for  a  space  upon  thy  breast 
Death's  shadowy  substitute  for  rapture — rest; 
Then  join  again  the  joyous  living  throng, 
And  give  me  life,  but  give  it  in  thy  song; 
For  only  they  that  die  themselves  may  give 
Life  to  the  dead ;  and  I  would  have  thee  live." 

Fear  seized  him  closer  than  her  arms;  but  he 
Answered:  "Not  so — for  thou  shalt  come  with  me! 
I  sought  thee  not  that  we  should  part  again, 
But  that  fresh  joy  should  bud  from  the  old  pain; 
And  the  gods,  if  grudgingly  their  gifts  they  make, 
Yield  all  to  them  that  without  asking  take." 

"The  gods,"  she  said,  "  (so  runs  life's  ancient  lore) 
Yield  all  man  takes,  but  always  claim  their  score. 
The  iron  wings  of  the  Eumenides 
When  heard  far  off  seem  but  a  summer  breeze; 
But  me  thou 'It  have  alive  on  earth  again 
Only  by  paying  here  my  meed  of  pain. 
Then  lay  on  my  cold  lips  the  tender  ghost 
Of  the  dear  kiss  that  used  to  warm  them  most, 
Take  from  my  frozen  hands  thy  hands  of  fire, 
62 


ORPHEUS 

And  of  my  heart-strings  make  thee  a  new  lyre, 
That  in  thy  music  men  may  find  my  voice, 
And  something  of  me  still  on  earth  rejoice." 

Shuddering  he  heard  her,  but  with  close-flung  arm 
Swept  her  resisting  through  the  ghostly  swarm. 
"Swift,  hide  thee  'neath  my  cloak,  that  we  may  glide 
Past  the  dim  warder  as  the  gate  swings  wide." 
He  whirled  her  with  him,  lighter  than  a  leaf 
Unwittingly  whirled  onward  by  a  brief 
Autumnal  eddy;  but  when  the  fatal  door 
Suddenly  yielded  him  to  life  once  more, 
And  issuing  to  the  all-consoling  skies 
He  turned  to  seek  the  sunlight  in  her  eyes, 
He  clutched  at  emptiness — she  was  not  there; 
And  the  dim  warder  answered  to  his  prayer: 
"  Once  only  have  I  seen  the  wonder  wrought. 
But  when  Alcestis  thus  her  master  sought, 
Living  she  sought  him  not,  nor  dreamed  that  fate 
For  any  subterfuge  would  swing  my  gate. 
Loving,  she  gave  herself  to  livid  death, 
Joyous  she  bought  his  respite  with  her  breath, 
Came,  not  embodied,  but  a  tenuous  shade, 
In  whom  her  rapture  a  great  radiance  made. 
For  never  saw  I  ghost  upon  this  shore 
63 


ORPHEUS 

Shine  with  such  living  ecstasy  before, 

Nor  heard  an  exile  from  the  light  above 

Hail  me  with  smiles:   Thou  art  not  Death  but  Lovel 

"But  when  the  gods,  frustrated,  this  beheld, 
How,  living  still,  among  the  dead  she  dwelled, 
Because  she  lived  in  him  whose  life  she  won, 
And  her  blood  beat  in  his  beneath  the  sun, 
They  reasoned:  'When  the  bitter  Stygian  wave 
The  sweetness  of  love's  kisses  cannot  lave, 
When  the  pale  flood  of  Lethe  washes  not 
From  mortal  mind  one  high  immortal  thought, 
Akin  to  us  the  earthly  creature  grows, 
Since  nature  suffers  only  what  it  knows. 
If  she  whom  we  to  this  grey  desert  banned 
Still  dreams  she  treads  with  him  the  sunlit  land 
That  for  his  sake  she  left  without  a  tear, 
Set  wide  the  gates — her  being  is  not  here.' 

"So  ruled  the  gods;  but  thou,  that  sought'st  to  give 
Thy  life  for  love,  yet  for  thyself  wouldst  live, 
They  know  not  for  their  kin;  but  back  to  earth 
Give,  pitying,  one  that  is  of  mortal  birth." 

Humbled  the  Harper  heard,  and  turned  away, 
Mounting  alone  to  the  empoverished  day; 
64 


ORPHEUS 

Yet,  as  he  left  the  Stygian  shades  behind, 
He  heard  the  cordage  on  the  harbour  wind, 
Saw  the  blue  smoke  above  the  homestead  trees, 
And  in  his  hidden  heart  was  glad  of  these. 


65 


AN    AUTUMN    SUNSET 
I 

TEAGUEREDinfire 

••— '  The  wild  black  promontories  of  the  coast  extend 
Their  savage  silhouettes; 
The  sun  in  universal  carnage  sets, 
And,  halting  higher, 

The  motionless  storm-clouds  mass  their  sullen  threats, 
Like  an  advancing  mob  in  sword-points  penned, 
That,  balked,  yet  stands  at  bay. 
Mid-zenith  hangs  the  fascinated  day 
In  wind-lustrated  hollows  crystalline, 
A  wan  Valkyrie  whose  wide  pinions  shine 
Across  the  ensanguined  ruins  of  the  fray, 
And  in  her  hand  swings  high  o'erhead, 
Above  the  waste  of  war, 
The  silver  torch-light  of  the  evening  star 
Wherewith  to  search  the  faces  of  the  dead. 


66 


AN    AUTUMN    SUNSET 

II 

Lagooned  in  gold, 

Seem  not  those  jetty  promontories  rather 

The  outposts  of  some  ancient  land  forlorn, 

Uncomforted  of  morn, 

Where  old  oblivions  gather, 

The  melancholy  unconsoling  fold 

Of  all  things  that  go  utterly  to  death 

And  mix  no  more,  no  more 

With  life's  perpetually  awakening  breath  ? 

Shall  Tune  not  ferry  me  to  such  a  shore, 

Over  such  sailless  seas, 

To  walk  with  hope's  slain  importunities 

In  miserable  marriage  ?    Nay,  shall  not 

All  things  be  there  forgot, 

Save  the  sea's  golden  barrier  and  the  black 

Close-crouching  promontories  ? 

Dead  to  all  shames,  forgotten  of  all  glories, 

Shall  I  not  wander  there,  a  shadow's  shade, 

A  spectre  self-destroyed, 

So  purged  of  all  remembrance  and  sucked  back 

Into  the  primal  void, 

That  should  we  on  that  shore  phantasmal  meet 

I  should  not  know  the  coming  of  your  feet  ? 

67 
. 


MOONRISE    OVER    TYRING- 
HAM 

NT  OW  the  high  holocaust  of  hours  is  done, 
*  ^    And  all  the  west  empurpled  with  their  death, 
How  swift  oblivion  drinks  the  fallen  sun, 
How  little  while  the  dusk  remembereth ! 

Though  some  there  were,  proud  hours  that  marched  in  mail, 
And  took  the  morning  on  auspicious  crest, 
Crying  to  fortune  "Back,  for  I  prevail!" — 
Yet  now  they  lie  disfeatured  with  the  rest; 

And  some  that  stole  so  soft  on  destiny 

Methought  they  had  surprised  her  to  a  smile; 

But  these  fled  frozen  when  she  turned  to  see, 

And  moaned  and  muttered  through  my  heart  awhile. 

But  now  the  day  is  emptied  of  them  all, 

And  night  absorbs  their  life-blood  at  a  draught; 

And  so  my  life  lies,  as  the  gods  let  fall 

An  empty  cup  from  which  their  lips  have  quaffed. 


MOONRISE    OVER    TYRINGHAM 

Yet  see — night  is  not  ...  by  translucent  ways, 
Up  the  grey  void  of  autumn  afternoon 
Steals  a  mild  crescent,  charioted  in  haze, 
And  all  the  air  is  merciful  as  June. 


The  lake  is  a  forgotten  streak  of  day 
That  trembles  through  the  hemlocks'  darkling  bars, 
And  still,  my  heart,  still  some  divine  delay 
Upon  the  threshold  holds  the  earliest  stars. 

O  pale  equivocal  hour,  whose  suppliant  feet 
Haunt  the  mute  reaches  of  the  sleeping  wind, 
Art  thou  a  watcher  stealing  to  entreat 
Prayer  and  sepulture  for  thy  fallen  kind  ? 

Poor  plaintive  waif  of  a  predestined  race, 
Their  ruin  gapes  for  thee.    Why  linger  here  ? 
Go  hence  in  silence.    Veil  thine  orphaned  face, 
Lest  I  should  look  on  it  and  call  it  dear. 

For  if  I  love  thee  thou  wilt  sooner  die; 

Some  sudden  ruin  will  plunge  upon  thy  head, 

Midnight  will  fall  from  the  revengeful  sky 

And  hurl  thee  down  among  thy  shuddering  dead. 


MOONRISE    OVER    TYRINGHAM 

Avert  thine  eyes.    Lapse  softly  from  my  sight, 
Call  not  my  name,  nor  heed  if  thine  I  crave, 
So  shalt  thou  sink  through  mitigated  night 
And  bathe  thee  in  the  all-effacing  wave. 

But  upward  still  thy  perilous  footsteps  fare 
Along  a  high-hung  heaven  drenched  in  light, 
Dilating  on  a  tide  of  crystal  air 
That  floods  the  dark  hills  to  their  utmost  height. 

Strange  hour,  is  this  thy  waning  face  that  leans 
Out  of  mid-heaven  and  makes  my  soul  its  glass  ? 
What  victory  is  imaged  there  ?     What  means 
Thy  tarrying  smile  ?     Oh,  veil  thy  lips  and  pass. 

Nay  .  .  .  pause  and  let  me  name  thee!     For  I  see, 
O  with  what  flooding  ecstasy  of  light, 
Strange  hour  that  wilt  not  loose  thy  hold  on  me, 
Thou  'rt  not  day's  latest,  but  the  first  of  night ! 

And  after  thee  the  gold-foot  stars  come  thick, 
From  hand  to  hand  they  toss  the  flying  fire, 
Till  all  the  zenith  with  their  dance  is  quick 
About  the  wheeling  music  of  the  Lyre. 
70 


MOONRISE    OVER    TYRINGHAM 

Dread  hour  that  lead'st  the  immemorial  round, 
With  lifted  torch  revealing  one  by  one 
The  thronging  splendours  that  the  day  held  bound, 
And  how  each  blue  abyss  enshrines  its  sun — 

Be  thou  the  image  of  a  thought  that  fares 
Forth  from  itself,  and  flings  its  ray  ahead, 
Leaping  the  barriers  of  ephemeral  cares, 
To  where  our  lives  are  but  the  ages'  tread, 

And  let  this  year  be,  not  the  last  of  youth, 
But  first — like  thee! — of  some  new  train  of  hours, 
If  more  remote  from  hope,  yet  nearer  truth, 
And  kin  to  the  unpetitionable  powers. 


71 


ALL    SOULS 


A     THIN  moon  faints  in  the  sky  o'erhead, 
^*-  And  dumb  in  the  churchyard  lie  the  dead. 
Walk  we  not,  Sweet,  by  garden  ways, 
Where  the  late  rose  hangs  and  the  phlox  delays, 
But  forth  of  the  gate  and  down  the  road, 
Past  the  church  and  the  yews,  to  their  dim  abode. 
For  it's  turn  of  the  year  and  All  Souls'  night, 
When  the  dead  can  hear  and  the  dead  have  sight. 

II 

Fear  not  that  sound  like  wind  in  the  trees: 

It  is  only  their  call  that  comes  on  the  breeze; 

Fear  not  the  shudder  that  seems  to  pass : 

It  is  only  the  tread  of  their  feet  on  the  grass; 

Fear  not  the  drip  of  the  bough  as  you  stoop : 

It  is  only  the  touch  of  their  hands  that  grope — 

For  the  year's  on  the  turn  and  it's  All  Souls'  night, 

When  the  dead  can  yearn  and  the  dead  can  smite. 


ALL    SOULS 


III 

And  where  should  a  man  bring  his  sweet  to  woo 
But  here,  where  such  hundreds  were  lovers  too  ? 
Where  lie  the  dead  lips  that  thirst  to  kiss, 
The  empty  hands  that  their  fellows  miss, 
Where  the  maid  and  her  lover,  from  sere  to  green, 
Sleep  bed  by  bed,  with  the  worm  between  ? 
For  it's  turn  of  the  year  and  All  Souls'  night, 
When  the  dead  can  hear  and  the  dead  have  sight. 

IV 

And  now  they  rise  and  walk  in  the  cold, 

Let  us  warm  their  blood  and  give  youth  to  the  old. 

Let  them  see  us  and  hear  us,  and  say:  "Ah,  thus 

In  the  prime  of  the  year  it  went  with  us!" 

Till  their  lips  drawn  close,  and  so  long  unkist, 

Forget  they  are  mist  that  mingles  with  mist! 

For  the  year's  on  the  turn,  and  it's  All  Souls'  night, 

When  the  dead  can  burn  and  the  dead  can  smite. 


73 


ALL    SOULS 


Till  they  say,  as  they  hear  us — poor  dead,  poor  dead! 

"  Just  an  hour  of  this,  and  our  age-long  bed — 

Just  a  thrill  of  the  old  remembered  pains 

To  kindle  a  flame  in  our  frozen  veins, 

A  touch,  and  a  sight,  and  a  floating  apart, 

As  the  chill  of  dawn  strikes  each  phantom  heart — 

For  it's  turn  of  the  year  and  All  Souls'  night, 

When  the  dead  can  hear  and  the  dead  have  sight." 

VI 

And  where  should  the  living  feel  alive 
But  here  in  this  wan  white  humming  hive, 
As  the  moon  wastes  down,  and  the  dawn  turns  cold, 
And  one  by  one  they  creep  back  to  the  fold  ? 
And  where  should  a  man  hold  his  mate  and  say: 
"One  more,  one  more,  ere  we  go  their  way"  ? 
For  the  year's  on  the  turn,  and  it's  All  Souls'  night, 
When  the  living  can  learn  by  the  churchyard  light. 


74 


ALL    SOULS 


VII 

And  how  should  we  break  faith  who  have  seen 
Those  dead  lips  plight  with  the  mist  between, 
And  how  forget,  who  have  seen  how  soon 
They  lie  thus  chambered  and  cold  to  the  moon  ? 
How  scorn,  how  hate,  how  strive,  we  too, 
Who  must  do  so  soon  as  those  others  do  ? 
For  it's  All  Souls'  night,  and  break  of  the  day, 
And  behold,  with  the  light  the  dead  are  away.  . 


75 


ALL    SAINTS 

x^iZ,  50  grave  and  shining  see  they  come 

From  the  blissful  ranks  of  the  forgiven, 
Though  so  distant  wheels  the  nearest  crystal  dome, 
And  the  spheres  are  seven. 

Are  you  in  such  haste  to  come  to  earth, 
Shining  ones,  the  Wonder  on  your  brow, 

To  the  low  poor  places  of  your  birth, 

And  the  day  that  must  be  darkness  now  ? 

Does  the  heart  still  crave  the  spot  it  yearned  on 

In  the  grey  and  mortal  years, 
The  pure  flame  the  smoky  hearth  it  burned  on, 

The  clear  eye  its  tears  ? 

Was  there,  in  the  narrow  range  of  living, 

After  all  the  wider  scope  ? 
In  the  old  old  rapture  of  forgiving, 

In  the  long  long  flight  of  hope  ? 
76 


ALL    SAINTS 

Come  you,  from  free  sweep  across  the  spaces, 

To  the  irksome  bounds  of  mortal  law, 
From  the  all-embracing  Vision,  to  some  face's 

Look  that  never  saw  ? 

Never  we,  imprisoned  here,  had  sought  you, 
Lured  you  with  the  ancient  bait  of  pain, 

Down  the  silver  current  of  the  light-years  brought  you 
To  the  beaten  round  again — 

Is  it  you,  perchance,  who  ache  to  strain  us 

Dumbly  to  the  dim  transfigured  breast, 
Or  with  tragic  gesture  would  detain  us 

From  the  age-long  search  for  rest  ? 

Is  the  labour  then  more  glorious  than  the  laurel, 
The  learning  than  the  conquered  thought  ? 

Is  the  meed  of  men  the  righteous  quarrel, 
Not  the  justice  wrought  ? 

Long  ago  we  guessed  it,  faithful  ghosts, 
Proudly  chose  the  present  for  our  scene, 

And  sent  out  indomitable  hosts 
Day  by  day  to  widen  our  demesne. 

77 


ALL    SAINTS 

Sit  you  by  our  hearth-stone,  lone  immortals, 

Share  again  the  bitter  wine  of  life! 
Well  we  know,  beyond  the  peaceful  portals 

There  is  nothing  better  than  our  strife, 

Nought  more  thrilling  than  the  cry  that  calls  us, 
Spent  and  stumbling,  to  the  conflict  vain, 

After  each  disaster  that  befalls  us 
Nerves  us  for  a  sterner  strain, 

And,  when  flood  or  foeman  shakes  the  sleeper 

In  his  moment's  lapse  from  pain, 
Bids  us  fold  our  tents,  and  flee  our  kin,  and  deeper 

Drive  into  the  wilderness  again. 


78 


THE    OLD    POLE    STAR 

BEFORE  the  clepsydra  had  bound  the  days 
Man  tethered  Change  to  his  fixed  star,  and  said : 
"The  elder  races,  that  long  since  are  dead, 
Marched  by  that  light;  it  swerves  not  from  its  base 
Though  all  the  worlds  about  it  wax  and  fade." 

When  Egypt  saw  it,  fast  in  reeling  spheres, 

Her  Pyramids  shaft-centred  on  its  ray 

She  reared  and  said:  "Long  as  this  star  holds  sway 

In  uninvaded  ether,  shall  the  years 

Revere  my  monuments — "  and  went  her  way. 

The  Pyramids  abide;  but  through  the  shaft 

That  held  the  polar  pivot,  eye  to  eye, 

Look  now — blank  nothingness !   As  though  Change  laughed 

At  man's  presumption  and  his  puny  craft, 

The  star  has  slipped  its  leash  and  roams  the  sky. 

Yet  could  the  immemorial  piles  be  swung 
A  skyey  hair's-breadth  from  their  rooted  base, 
Back  to  the  central  anchorage  of  space, 
Ah,  then  again,  as  when  the  race  was  young, 
Should  they  behold  the  beacon  of  the  race! 
79 


THE    OLD    POLE    STAR 

Of  old,  men  said :  "  The  Truth  is  there :  we  rear 
Our  faith  full-centred  on  it.    It  was  known 
Thus  of  the  elders  who  foreran  us  here, 
Mapped  out  its  circuit  in  the  shifting  sphere, 
And  found  it,  'mid  mutation,  fixed  alone." 

Change  laughs  again,  again  the  sky  is  cold, 
And  down  that  fissure  now  no  star-beam  glides. 
Yet  they  whose  sweep  of  vision  grows  not  old 
Still  at  the  central  point  of  space  behold 
Another  pole-star:  for  the  Truth  abides. 


80 


A    GRAVE 

HTHOUGH  life  should  come 

•*•     With  all  its  marshalled  honours,  trump  and  drum, 
To  proffer  you  the  captaincy  of  some 
Resounding  exploit,  that  shall  fill 
Man's  pulses  with  commemorative  thrill, 
And  be  a  banner  to  far  battle  days 
For  truths  unrisen  upon  untrod  ways, 
What  would  your  answer  be, 

0  heart  once  brave  ? 
Seek  otherwhere;  for  me, 

1  watch  beside  a  grave. 

Though  to  some  shining  festival  of  thought 

The  sages  call  you  from  steep  citadel 

Of  bastioned  argument,  whose  rampart  gained 

Yields  the  pure  vision  passionately  sought, 

In  dreams  known  well, 

But  never  yet  in  wakefulness  attained, 

How  should  you  answer  to  their  summons,  save: 

I  watch  beside  a  grave? 

81 


A    GRAVE 

Though  Beauty,  from  her  fane  within  the  soul 

Of  fire-tongued  seers  descending, 

Or  from  the  dream-lit  temples  of  the  past 

With  feet  immortal  wending, 

Illuminate  grief's  antre  swart  and  vast 

With  half-veiled  face  that  promises  the  whole 

To  him  who  holds  her  fast, 

What  answer  could  you  give  ? 

Sight  of  one  face  I  crave, 

One  only  while  I  live; 

Woo  elsewhere;  for  I  watch  beside  a  grave. 

Though  love  of  the  one  heart  that  loves  you  best, 

A  storm-tossed  messenger, 

Should  beat  its  wings  for  shelter  in  your  breast, 

Where  clung  its  last  year's  nest, 

The  nest  you  built  together  and  made  fast 

Lest  envious  winds  should  stir, 

And  winged  each  delicate  thought  to  minister 

With  sweetness  far-amassed 

To  the  young  dreams  within — 

What  answer  could  it  win  ? 

The  nest  was  whelmed  in  sorrow's  rising  wave, 

Nor  could  I  reach  one  drowning  dream  to  save; 

I  watch  beside  a  grave. 

82 


NON    DOLET! 

A  GE  after  age  the  fruit  of  knowledge  falls 
•**•  To  ashes  on  men's  lips; 
Love  fails,  faith  sickens,  like  a  dying  tree 
Life  sheds  its  dreams  that  no  new  spring  recalls; 
The  longed-for  ships 

Come  empty  home  or  founder  on  the  deep, 
And  eyes  first  lose  their  tears  and  then  their  sleep. 

So  weary  a  world  it  lies,  forlorn  of  day, 

And  yet  not  wholly  dark, 

Since  evermore  some  soul  that  missed  the  mark 

Calls  back  to  those  agrope 

In  the  mad  maze  of  hope, 

"Courage,  my  brothers — I  have  found  the  way!" 

The  day  is  lost  ?    What  then  ? 
What  though  the  straggling  rear-guard  of  the  fight 
Be  whelmed  in  fear  and  night, 
And  the  flying  scouts  proclaim 
That  death  has  gripped  the  van — 
Ever  the  heart  of  man 
Cheers  on  the  hearts  of  men ! 
83 


NON    DOLET! 

"It  hurts  not!"  dying  cried  the  Roman  wife; 

And  one  by  one 

The  leaders  in  the  strife 

Fall  on  the  blade  of  failure  and  exclaim : 

"The  day  is  won!" 


84 


A    HUNTING-SONG 

TTUNTERS,  where  does  Hope  nest? 
-*•*   Not  in  the  half-oped  breast, 
Nor  the  young  rose, 
Nor  April  sunrise — those 
With  a  quick  wing  she  brushes, 
The  wide  world  through, 
Greets  with  the  throat  of  thrushes, 
Fades  from  as  fast  as  dew. 

But,  would  you  spy  her  sleeping, 
Cradled  warm, 

Look  in  the  breast  of  weeping, 
The  tree  stript  by  storm; 
But,  would  you  bind  her  fast, 
Yours  at  last, 
Bed-mate  and  lover, 
Gain  the  last  headland  bare 
That  the  cold  tides  cover, 
There  may  you  capture  her,  there, 
Where  the  sea  gives  to  the  ground 
Only  the  drift  of  the  drowned. 
85 


A    HUNTING-SONG 

Yet,  if  she  slips  you,  once  found, 
Push  to  her  uttermost  lair 
In  the  low  house  of  despair. 
There  will  she  watch  by  your  head, 
Sing  to  you  till  you  be  dead, 
Then,  with  your  child  in  her  breast, 
In  another  heart  build  a  new  nest. 


86 


SURVIVAL 

WHEN  you  and  I,  like  all  things  kind  or  cruel, 
The  garnered  days  and  light  evasive  hours, 
Are  gone  again  to  be  a  part  of  flowers 
And  tears  and  tides,  in  life's  divine  renewal, 

If  some  grey  eve  to  certain  eyes  should  wear 
A  deeper  radiance  than  mere  light  can  give, 
Some  silent  page  abruptly  flush  and  live, 
May  it  not  be  that  you  and  I  are  there  ? 


87 


USES 

AH,  from  the  niggard  tree  of  Time 
-**•     How  quickly  fall  the  hours! 
It  needs  no  touch  of  wind  or  rime 
To  loose  such  facile  flowers. 

Drift  of  the  dead  year's  harvesting, 
They  clog  to-morrow's  way, 

Yet  serve  to  shelter  growths  of  spring 
Beneath  their  warm  decay, 

Or,  blent  by  pious  hands  with  rare 

Sweet  savours  of  content, 
Surprise  the  soul's  December  air 

With  June's  forgotten  scent. 


A    MEETING 

N  a  sheer  peak  of  joy  we  meet; 

Below  us  hums  the  abyss; 
Death  either  way  allures  our  feet 
If  we  take  one  step  amiss. 

One  moment  let  us  drink  the  blue 

Transcendent  air  together — 
Then  down  where  the  same  old  work's  to  do 

In  the  same  dull  daily  weather. 

We  may  not  wait  ...  yet  look  below! 

How  part  ?    On  this  keen  ridge 
But  one  may  pass.    They  call  you — go! 

My  life  shall  be  your  bridge. 


Note. — Vesalius,  the  great  anatomist,  studied  at  Louvain  and  Paris, 
and  was  called  by  Venice  to  the  chair  of  surgery  in  the  University 
of  Padua.  He  was  one  of  the  first  physiologists  to  dissect  the 
human  body,  and  his  great  work  "The  Structure  of  the  Human 
Body  "  was  an  open  attack  on  the  physiology  of  Galen.  The 
book  excited  such  violent  opposition,  not  only  in  the  Church  but 
in  the  University,  that  in  a  fit  of  discouragement  he  burned  his 
remaining  manuscripts  and  accepted  the  post  of  physician  at 
the  Court  of  Charles  V.,  and  afterward  of  his  son,  Philip  II.  of 
Spain.  This  closed  his  life  of  free  enquiry,  for  the  Inquisition 
forbade  all  scientific  research,  and  the  dissection  of  corpses  was 
prohibited  in  Spain.  Vesalius  led  for  many  years  the  life  of  the 
rich  and  successful  court  physician,  but  regrets  for  his  past  were 
never  wholly  extinguished,  and  in  1561  they  were  roused  afresh 
by  the  reading  of  an  anatomical  treatise  by  Gabriel  Fallopius, 
his  successor  in  the  chair  at  Padua.  From  that  moment  life  in 
Spain  became  intolerable  to  Vesalius,  and  in  1563  he  set  out  for 
the  East.  Tradition  reports  that  this  journey  was  a  penance  to 
which  the  Church  condemned  him  for  having  opened  the  body 
of  a  woman  before  she  was  actually  dead;  but  more  probably 
Vesalius,  sick  of  his  long  servitude,  made  the  pilgrimage  a 
pretext  to  escape  from  Spain. 

Fallopius  had  meanwhile  died,  and  the  Venetian  Senate  is 
said  to  have  offered  Vesalius  his  old  chair;  but  on  the  way  home 
from  Jerusalem  he  was  seized  with  illness,  and  died  at  Zante 
in  1564. 


90 


DUB  Ilillillll  III  II II 

L  006  864  723  9 


